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PRETORIA, South Africa — A South African police officer swung a cricket bat at Oscar Pistorius’
bullet-marked bathroom door during his murder trial yesterday, using two key pieces of evidence to
re-enact the night Pistorius killed his girlfriend.

Police Col. J.G. Vermeulen faced tough questioning from Pistorius’ defense attorney, who tried
to discredit the police investigation of the shooting and alleged that Vermeulen, a forensic
expert, made glaring missteps in his analysis.

Pistorius’ attorneys secured bail for him last year after arguing that police contaminated or
tampered with evidence from the home where he fatally shot Reeva Steenkamp, firing through the
bathroom door as she cowered inside during the pre-dawn hours of Valentine’s Day 2013.

Pistorius says the killing was a mistake; the prosecution alleges the that 27-year-old
double-amputee intentionally shot Steenkamp after an argument.

The actual door that Pistorius shot through a year ago was erected in the Pretoria courtroom
yesterday, and the bat he used that night was used in the demonstrations. There was even a toilet
cubicle behind the door, re-created to the exact specifications of the small area of Pistorius’
bathroom where the 29-year-old model was fatally shot, Vermeulen said.

Below the door’s handle, four bullet holes were clearly visible. Steenkamp was hit three times
in the hip, arm and head. One shot missed, the court has heard.

Pistorius says he used the bat to break down the door after realizing that he had shot
Steenkamp, mistaking her for an intruder.

Kneeling, Vermeulen swung the bat to show how he thought Pistorius struck the door from a low
angle, indicating that he was on his stumps at the time.

Defense attorney Barry Roux insisted that Pistorius was wearing his prosthetic legs, saying that
the bat marks on the door were low because he swung with a bent back.

The back-and-forth over whether Pistorius, the first amputee to run at the Olympics, was on his
prosthetic limbs or not is important because it could match parts of his story that he accidentally
shot Steenkamp, or expose inconsistencies in it.

Last year, prosecutors maintained that Pistorius was on his prostheses when he fired through the
door, arguing that the runner planned the killing while putting on his artificial limbs. But in a
reversal, prosecutor Gerrie Nel said in court yesterday that he did not dispute the defense’s
contention that the runner was on his stumps when he opened fire.

The athlete has said he fearfully approached the bathroom on his stumps and shot Steenkamp by
mistake, thinking she was an intruder hiding behind the door. According to his account, he then put
on his prostheses and tried to kick down the locked door, striking it with a cricket bat in a
panicked attempt to reach his girlfriend.

Roux turned up the pressure on Vermeulen, saying the police investigator failed to properly look
at another mark on the door the defense says was made by Pistorius’ prosthetic leg as he tried to
kick it down, leaving a piece of sock fabric lodged in the wood.

The defense attorney also indicated that police investigators might have left a shoe print on
the door, the door itself might have been kept in a policeman’s office and not in proper evidence
storage, and missing fragments from the door weren’t examined. Vermeulen said the door was kept in
a “body bag.”

Pistorius faces a possible life sentence if convicted of murder for killing Steenkamp. The judge
ultimately will render a verdict. South Africa has no trial by jury.

Pistorius was born without fibula bones because of a congenital defect, and his legs were
amputated when he was 11 months old. He ran on carbon-fiber blades and is a multiple Paralympic
medalist. He also competed at the London Olympics but didn’t win a medal.